Nourish the Body
by Daria234
Summary: Futurefic postJD. John has just sent Kyle back and it changes the way he thinks about his relationship with Derek. But he also has to focus on keeping people from starving, and the things that unexpectedly make that even harder.


Written for comment_fic on Livejournal, prompt was 'rations'

Rations are, by definition, things you use up slowly. Things you ration out because you need them and they are scarce.

Things you hold onto as long as you can, as you eat just enough to live, so they're not frittered away in some great sweep of need, to satisfy some urge that was desperate to be full and satisfied, to give the body just a tiny moment of something that it remembers from a long time ago.

Feeling good.

Feeling like you had enough.

There were people who made this mistake, gobbling anything edible they could find, even beyond fullness. Out of hunger pangs, out of fear that someone else might take it, and sometimes just out of the desire to trick one's body into thinking it would be all right. John wasn't sure if this desire, this hunger, came from the body's desperation to live, or from the mind's desperation to die.

But sometimes they saw the opposite. People starving themselves so they wouldn't have to deplete the rations. Especially the ones who were alone a long time. Sometimes they would find bodies when they shouldn't have, when someone could have easily gotten away but didn't have the strength. They tried to not eat, or, some of them, not to drink. And sometimes, people would literally die of starvation, stick thin except for distension.

And then they would search for weapons or fuel and they would find a stack of rations. Usually a decent-sized one. And _always_ neatly stacked into a perfect geometric shape.

Because some people were terrified to let their ration supply shrink even a little bit smaller. They died to protect their rations. Sometimes they would find someone before they had committed this particular brand of suicide. One man had tried to kick and flail and run away rather than be forced to eat a ration, even one that a soldier gave him from her own supply. He kept repeating, "I can't, I can't, there's not enough, there's not enough." They brought him along to the nearest settlement, but they never got word on how (or whether) he adapted.

It was irrational, of course, and everyone shook their heads and wondered what kind of mind could convince itself to take such measures. Rations are to be stored, yes. But you hang on to them so you can _use_ them. You don't hold on just because you like holding on.

They found another one like that the day after John sent Kyle back. The body was huddled over a box that had 25 meals and 75 bottles of water in it. He had died of dehydration.

"Guess he loved that box more than he loved living," Derek said grimly. His tone did nothing to indicate Derek thought the choice was less than sane.

"We bury him," John said, to the shock of everyone there. It would be dangerous to stick around long enough to tend to a body, especially one of some lunatic that none of them knew.

But they did what they were told. And John took a second to watch Derek dig.

He was a good soldier. A good brother. And soon would be a good uncle. Derek did his share to make sure that their species survived a little longer than it was supposed to. More than his share, actually.

And the same was true for Kyle. John had watched him go, obedient as ever, to travel back, to find love and victory and death. John had never been so tempted to betray the human race as he was then, as he let the thought spike through his mind, the brief dangerous little thought that maybe he should just hang on, maybe just cling on to what he loved. Because things he loved were scarce.

But you can't let yourself die just because you're afraid to use the only thing that lets you live. Just because you would rather huddle with it in a corner, just because you think you can't bear to watch it fade into nothing, a pile of empty wrappers.

Because you do bear it. You can bear a lot of things you weren't sure that you could.

Derek walked up to John, pushing the sweat of his own forehead with a dirty hand. "Burial's done, sir. We should move out."

It was a request for permission, John knew, and he nodded his assent. As Derek walked away, John once again counted how many days he could safely wait before sending Derek back.

Not enough, John knew. Not enough.


End file.
